UPDATE: Sorry to repeat the bra-burning factoid. I do know better. There was a plan to burn bras at the 1968 protest, but, lacking a fire permit, the protesters merely threw bras in a trashcan. You can read the accurate story of the protest at this website. Also at that website is the historical text "No more Miss America!" which includes some rich prose, such as:
We protest … Miss America as Military Death Mascot. The highlight of her reign each year is a cheerleader-tour of American troops abroad--last year she went to Vietnam to pep-talk our husbands, fathers, sons and boyfriends into dying and killing with a better spirit. She personifies the "unstained patriotic American womanhood our boys are fighting for." The Living Bra and the Dead Soldier. We refuse to be used as Mascots for Murder.
Yikes! That is what 1968 was like, folks.
MORE: "Living Bra" was a Playtex brand name for an ordinary bra, which you can see if you scroll down on this vintage lingerie page.
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